Observations on the 5.8 scoreboard system

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First of all I want to give the devs team a huge compliment for their work on this 5.8 version. Since a couple weeks activity on the servers, even the european one has increased considerably and besides the usual fights, we all had the opportunity to capture or defend Keeps, forts and outposts which had a meaningful impact on the scoreboard.

For me capturing and defending those points of interests started as a fun activity but rapidly transformed into a boring, repetititive and pointless one. The main reason is that the people playing in other factions had different playing schedules than my guildmates and I: when we would go sleep they would capture all the forts and alot of outposts back, typically between 00:00-06:00am Central European Time.

That is why I would like to suggest a few changes in the way the scoreboard system works:

Firstly Keeps should earn more points per tick, maybe 50-55 instead of 40 points, putting more emphasis on sieging and giving people time to organise thanks to the sieging windows of opportunity.

Secondly there should be less outposts in the different worlds.

Thirdly Keeps and forts should give half the amount of points during the night that is 00:00-06:00 am.

Fourthly Kills and Assists should give players of a faction more points.

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I would love to see minimal points given for capturing or holding the lands. But, and it is a great big but!! I would want to see points given for working the land. Harvesting on it gives you points. Crafting on it gives you points. Killing/defending on it gives you points. Having people active in the area is what gets you the score, not just capturing vast swaths of land and leaving it fallow. Gathering and killing in enemy lands should get some bonus points as well, but should slowly tick the capture bar down.

Have a cap of some sort to prevent too much exploitation, but larger parcels or highly contested/valuable ones could have a higher cap of points for the various types of use.

Of course I also want the ability to upgrade the camps and towers with building mats to make them more valuable, adding crafting, vendors and such, where it would make sense.

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The capture/points mechanics should be fight generators. The current system is an exercise in backcapping, nightcapping, and hiding behind guards. There should be points reward for ongoing player activity and some map indication of it as well so people can find fights.

I'm thinking something along the lines of creating sectors on the map, getting enough NPC kills/farmed resources/captured outposts will result in your faction getting some points for owning the sector for that tick. A "points earned within the last 15 minutes" indicator, "player deaths in the last 15 minutes" or some sort of "players active in this sector" counter could then be implemented per sector, obviously nothing too specific to keep up the fog of war. I'm thinking about 6-7 sectors per individual map would be enough to make it viable for solo players/small groups to contribute, this may need to be tweaked if the population counts increase.

You could tweak the outposts to lose capture points every tick so after an hour or so of being uncontested they would go back to neutral. They are an indication of player activity as well, under the current system they are very static and more of a grind and best to be avoided if they aren't already taken.

You do still need to have forts and keeps to have big fights. The point rewards for those can be adjusted as required.

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For me capturing and defending those points of interests started as a fun activity but rapidly transformed into a boring, repetititive and pointless one. The main reason is that the people playing in other factions had different playing schedules than my guildmates and I: when we would go sleep they would capture all the forts and alot of outposts back, typically between 00:00-06:00am Central European Time.

-snip-

Thirdly Keeps and forts should give half the amount of points during the night that is 00:00-06:00 am.

I strongly feel having any windows like that is a bad approach.

I can't vouch for European activity, but from a US perspective my computer time is usually between 20:00 and 03:00 EST at night. I'm sure I'm not the only night owl (at least based on the fact that there are always players online when I am). If I'm penalized for playing at my nighttime, I might as well ask for a refund.

Also, if Europe is anything like the US, you have a fairly wide timezone spread for people trying to access the servers... Here in the US its 3 hours so that midnight to 6 AM window would likely be 9PM (primetime!) for the other coast.

In my book, part of the challenge in a competitive online game is figuring out what to do when sleeping or at working.

That being said, I don't feel strongly about your other points so I can't comment on them!

3 hours ago, Roccah said:

We seen this Campaign ..that Balance hide (only had 1 Groupfight in 4 days) and capture Forts in Night when normal ppl sleeping .. that is more than meme

I already touched on the "normal people sleeping" part... Playing on off hours is a viable strategy. Also, some people don't have choices about when they can play (family / work / etc).

As for avoiding group fights, its a viable strategy for small guilds. If you know you are going to be outnumbered and lose its silly to fight. If I was a guild leader, I'd definitely make arrangements for a "sniping" or "scout" squad to grab us uncontested points... Its just playing smart. AND it encourages constant server activity as well.

I'm pretty sure the devs said something to the effect of wanting players to be able to hop in for short play sessions at any time and still contribute to their factions victory. Sure, large scale events will be the main focus, but there's more than that!

3 hours ago, srathor said:

I would love to see minimal points given for capturing or holding the lands. But, and it is a great big but!! I would want to see points given for working the land. Harvesting on it gives you points. Crafting on it gives you points. Killing/defending on it gives you points. Having people active in the area is what gets you the score, not just capturing vast swaths of land and leaving it fallow. Gathering and killing in enemy lands should get some bonus points as well, but should slowly tick the capture bar down.

Have a cap of some sort to prevent too much exploitation, but larger parcels or highly contested/valuable ones could have a higher cap of points for the various types of use.

Of course I also want the ability to upgrade the camps and towers with building mats to make them more valuable, adding crafting, vendors and such, where it would make sense.

THIS! 100% THIS! Being active gives points. Let the harvesters and crafters contribute in their own way!

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I can't vouch for European activity, but from a US perspective my computer time is usually between 20:00 and 03:00 EST at night. I'm sure I'm not the only night owl (at least based on the fact that there are always players online when I am). If I'm penalized for playing at my nighttime, I might as well ask for a refund.

Also, if Europe is anything like the US, you have a fairly wide timezone spread for people trying to access the servers... Here in the US its 3 hours so that midnight to 6 AM window would likely be 9PM (primetime!) for the other coast.

2

I agree with Belantis that some amending is needed, there is possibly a higher amount of night-capping happening currently due to holidays however there should be at a minimum a 6 hour period in which there will be non-activity ( IE sleep periods, could also add in another 8 hours for working hours etc but lets not go into that too much ). Each region IE US or EU will have peak activity periods for that region, for example, EU usually quite active from around 1900-2200 ish GMT. Then usually there will be a period from either 2400-0600 which most of us will be asleep.

Having a period of time maybe say like 0300-0900 which there is a 50% reduction in points would possibly deter people from going to cap everything when everyone is offline.

I think most of us can agree that the amount of outposts is still too much and becomes a grind to retake all of them (even with the 20% reduction) however a few ideas I've had from talking with guildies which could make them more useful and as a way of seeing the map unfold which would also help prevent the start campaign rush for forts & keeps and make it a more tactful approach would make more interesting gameplay is if you had to capture the outposts that lead up to said keep or fort in order to be able to capture it. IE creating a logistical chain in which said keep/fort would be "supplied" from x or y temple location.

Having some mechanics like this in the game would give an earlier warning system in place to which you could see who was pushing in what direction or create a diversion for where you are placing your full force etc and would make outposts more meaningful and make more sense for factions/guilds to focus on taking all outposts around forts/keeps so they can try to defend them.

The siege mechanics is great as well really does create a peak time spike and activity when the sieges start, would also be interesting to possibly see this happening a bit more with forts but more regular IE every hour or so, but that's just a more recent idea.

Also, have to say on an off comment I love the way the game has been developing and looking forward to seeing where we will end up! Awesome job devs for creating this!

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Having a period of time maybe say like 0300-0900 which there is a 50% reduction in points would possibly deter people from going to cap everything when everyone is offline.

The siege mechanics is great as well really does create a peak time spike and activity when the sieges start, would also be interesting to possibly see this happening a bit more with forts but more regular IE every hour or so, but that's just a more recent idea.

If you are going to block off time, you might as well make the window 0300 to 1500. Most people should be in school or work from 0800 to 1500.

Having time windows is just giving one group of players a handicap against another. It doesn't fit the "git gud " mindset either. Scheduling is an important part of tactics!

It also punishes international guilds by saying some of their players are only worth half as much as others. Remember, they are open servers! I in the US can play in the UK if I want to. (And vice versa)

What it really does is give a false sense of security. It's not going to stop me from grabbing easy points. If I'm lucky I'll still several hours at full points in addition to my 6 hours of half points.

Siege mechanics are already there to encourage specific play Windows. We don't need more hand holding.

(And I won't argue about reducing the number of outposts... I don't have a strong opinion there)

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If you are going to block off time, you might as well make the window 0300 to 1500. Most people should be in school or work from 0800 to 1500.

Having time windows is just giving one group of players a handicap against another. It doesn't fit the "git gud " mindset either. Scheduling is an important part of tactics!

It also punishes international guilds by saying some of their players are only worth half as much as others. Remember, they are open servers! I in the US can play in the UK if I want to. (And vice versa)

What it really does is give a false sense of security. It's not going to stop me from grabbing easy points. If I'm lucky I'll still several hours at full points in addition to my 6 hours of half points.

Siege mechanics are already there to encourage specific play Windows. We don't need more hand holding.

(And I won't argue about reducing the number of outposts... I don't have a strong opinion there)

I wouldn't call it hand holding. You cant say people abusing the low population to get easy points is proper gameplay. There is no 'git gud'.

Time windows is just the easiest way to fix the problem. I personally like the idea of tying the points to the population at the time.

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crafters and harvesters make gear to give to the pvpers or themselves to get keeps and forts and such that gives you points. You contribute already i hope to god they don't implement a syystem that gives points to harvesting and crafting.

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They need to add other reason to stay in winter, For example add rare spawn mobs that spawn more commonly during winter that are strong but provide good drops, like decent resources/gems/minerals or what not

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I wouldn't call it hand holding. You cant say people abusing the low population to get easy points is proper gameplay. There is no 'git gud'.

Time windows is just the easiest way to fix the problem. I personally like the idea of tying the points to the population at the time.

I'll agree its not "hand holding", but will disagree its abusing the system.

To me, part of "git gud" for a guild is scheduling and organization. Guild leaders should take off hours into account.

Its an international game, it would be strategic to make friends who can watch your back while you sleep.

They also don't truly have the data to show when quiet times are... Pre alpha numbers really can't be used to judge "release" players.

Once the game is truly live, we may end up with no quiet periods after all!

People need to sleep, people have school/work, people live in different time zones. Its not the dev's job to impose a solution (unless they take the server offline daily), it falls to the players to deal with it.

That's my stance

That being said, if they take it further than time windows, and literally tie the points to the population at the time, then that's a brilliant idea.

IE: each tick give points based on the active number of players online compared to the servers ideal number of players. it would be relatively simple math.

That encourages people to play at the same time and depending on how its implemented it could also be used to discourage (or encourage) idling and/or zerging depending on the dev's vision.

I'm not opposed to variable reward windows, I'm opposed to set time windows.

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Only point gaining system i guess i wouldn't mind is like sacrifice system for resources but gives campaigns points instead of XP but even then it could be broken if overtuned with stockpiling resources to hand in last minute for point win without seeing it coming.

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I've actually become pretty annoyed by the repetition of some poor ass assumptions people have made about how these test campaigns have turned out. No one has any logical reason to believe there's a population imbalance in favor of any facrion, or that cap'ing outposts during low population hours leads to an insurmountable lead, but they'll repeat either or both of those things ad nauseum to make sense of something they apparently don't understand.

A numerous amount of players have decided not to take outposts because they find it boring (understandably, and I encourage all who feel that way to keep letting ACE know) but don't use that as an excuse to declare the system is broken. People chose not to participate and that has consequences, such as a massive point disparity, but the fact they choose not to retake outposts during "prime time" that someone bothered to take when they were working or asleep doesn't mean anything other than they failed to take action. People playing during the hours they have to do so isn't abusive (and really, what a ridiculous assertion to make).

I also consider forcing people to fight in specific places along some predetermined "front line" is some hand holding nonsense we don't need, especially when mechanics like the currently implemented spirit bank access keeps people from being forced to roam the maps.

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I would like to keep this thread civil and constructive, thanks for all replies that try to do that. If you're annoyed and can't restrain yourself from using dubious language, please move on.

As for most things there is a logical explanation and solution for the situation that is discussed here: we have a prime time that is fairly short where most people play and an off-peak time that is much longer where a minority of people are active. What we're talking about are night-cappers that capp alot (except Keeps) on the map during off-peak hours and let the point counter tick much longer than people playing during prime-time could possibly do, even if they capped alot of Keeps/forts/outpost. Its mathematics: if you don't have night-cappers in your faction you cannot win any campaign in the current situation. That's why I started this thread and posted a few possible solutions in my first message.